Helio Gaming bringing lottery to a new audience

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Malta-based lottery provider Helio Gaming recently sold its 500,000th lottery ticket and continues to go from strength to strength. 5 Star spoke to CEO Richard Mifsud ahead of their visit to iGB Live! in Amsterdam to find out what was hot in the world of lotto.

We hear you recently passed an interesting landmark as a business. Tell us more about that.

Yes, we sold our 500,000th lottery ticket which was a cause for celebration. I’m sure we will sell many more thousands in the years to come, but in a short space of time it is a real landmark. We’ve also serviced over 50,000 unique players and have paid out nearly 25,000 winners across a wide number of jurisdictions. I think that shows the scalability of our platform as a provider as well as the universal popularity of lottery as a product. With a host of new games, a far greater regularity when it comes to draws, and mobile-focused approach, we are reaching out to a younger generation of player for whom lottery wasn’t really on the radar. That is no longer the case.

What’s happening on the product side?

I’m delighted to say that we are now up and running with our live lottery solution as well. Streamed from our studios in Malta, there is a draw every three minutes and a great opportunity to win great cash prizes and interact with the girls handling the draw. We launched this on several BetConstruct brands and are already seeing some promising results. It is also proving to be popular with our partners in Africa. There is a real chance for operators to really own the product with their own colours and branding. I think it has got great potential and is one of the things we will be talking to operators and aggregators about at iGB Live! I’d be very happy to tell them a bit more – and it’s not just existing lottery operators. There is no reason why a casino or sportsbook can’t incorporate this into their product portfolio.

The Helio management team recent made a stellar signing with the appointment of industry veteran Keith Galea. What does he bring to the party?  

Keith is one of the original investors and co-founders of Helio Gaming. He has joined us as chief operations officer and will bring a wealth of industry expertise to that role. As we expand globally, we need more hands-on deck on the operations side and Keith will be very useful in coordinating that. He has his own consultancy and is very well-connected not only here in Malta but around the world, so his contacts will also help us grow as a business. 

Anything else on the go that we should know about?

Well, we’re looking forward to our summer boat party which will set sail from the island shortly. It is a great opportunity to say thankyou to members of the team for their hard work during the year. We are expanding all the time as we take on new clients and develop our product range, so we are always looking to add to the ranks. We will have more announcements on the client side in the next few weeks and are particularly excited about opportunities in emerging markets. I won’t say too much at the moment, but we also have a brand new game type coming out which combines lottery with a casino product. It could be a real game-changer when it comes to player cross-sell. Watch this space!

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